Kristalina Georgieva, head of the International Monetary Fund / WEB
The economic tightness suffered by Argentina does not condition the country’s foreign policy at all, assured the foreign minister, Santiago Cafiero, who advocates the suppression of surtaxes for countries that are indebted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“We believe that it is necessary to discuss many of these mechanisms that are not being consistent with what has happened in the world from 2008 onwards,” said the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, alluding to the functioning of the institutions Bretton Woods, created in 1944.
International organizations such as the FAO and Unicef have been warning of the increase in famines in the world since 2015, a problem that has worsened with the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, “and yet, from Bretton Woods onwards, the IMF has not it has changed its norms in a totally changed world”, pointed out Cafiero.
“We support the need to review the IMF’s surtax policy,” which represents a recurring debt crisis for countries like Argentina or Ecuador. “Those who have problems are punished and penalized (…) We need a different look at this,” he emphasized.
In January of this year, Argentina reached an agreement with the IMF to refinance for two and a half years the maturities of capital and interest of the 44,000 million dollars that the Government of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) received as a financial rescue in 2018.
But the amount of interest on the debt has risen more than 50% in dollars since last March, since surcharges are applied when a country’s debt balance exceeds the limit equivalent to 187.5% of the IMF quota and it is maintained for a certain time limit.
Regarding the country’s current economic situation, the foreign minister explained that “Argentina is going through a heterogeneous situation today: two years of consecutive economic growth, with projections that next year will be the third,
